So, 45%FG & Approx. 35%3PT is typically what you expect from a really good SG in the NBA ('the BEST' get above 45% & 39% respectively) considering most of their points come from the perimeter and Knight is close to that at 42% & 38%. But, Stuckey is nowhere close and he's abominable from 3. Nevermind the fact that the Pistons are paying $8M+ for what was supposed to be a starting SG/PG who's giving you 11 pts a game, is routinely 4-12 from the field on any given night, and is constantly being disciplined by coaches. Knight looks to be improving and becoming a better player while behind handed the reigns while Stuckey is getting worse AND having a detrimental effect on the team and it's offensive efficiency overall with his generally awful, self-serving possessions. The numbers support this; nevermind just sitting and watching him be horrible night after night on the TV.

I don't know if it's been mentioned, but it seems interesting to me that Stuckey requests that Singler starts and he moves to the bench, while Bynum suggests that Stuckey should start and Singler should be moved to the bench.

It seems like both Stuckey and Bynum want to dominate the ball on the second unit. I see room for only one.

So, 45%FG & Approx. 35%3PT is typically what you expect from a really good SG in the NBA ('the BEST' get above 45% & 39% respectively) considering most of their points come from the perimeter and Knight is close to that at 42% & 38%. But, Stuckey is nowhere close and he's abominable from 3. Nevermind the fact that the Pistons are paying $8M+ for what was supposed to be a starting SG/PG who's giving you 11 pts a game, is routinely 4-12 from the field on any given night, and is constantly being disciplined by coaches. Knight looks to be improving and becoming a better player while behind handed the reigns while Stuckey is getting worse AND having a detrimental effect on the team and it's offensive efficiency overall with his generally awful, self-serving possessions. The numbers support this; nevermind just sitting and watching him be horrible night after night on the TV.

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Stuckey draws more fouls and that helps narrow the gap.

Per 36 minutes, here is what each guy does:

Knight-
3.5/8.0 from inside the arc
2.0/5.2 from outside the arc
2.8/3.8 from the FT line

So, he scores 15.8 points on 13.2 attempts + about 1.9 attempts where he drew a foul. That's 15.1 total possessions used on his offense and 15.8 points as a result.

Stuckey-
3.9/9.4 from inside the arc
1.0/ 3.5 from outside the arc
3.5/4.5 from the FT line

Using the same logic, Stuckey scores 14.5 points on about 15.15 total possessions.

With the same utilization rates, we lose 1.3 points per 36 minutes with Stuckey instead of Knight.

The turnover differential advantage earns it almost exactly back. Again, their assist rates are identical.

Knight is doing it against starters and Stuckey is doing it against a combination of bench and starters. That is the argument that I would make in Knight's favor. Other than that, we have 2 guys with identical efficiency overall... which is probably a big reason why their PERs are identical.

Yeah, but this is one of those times where numbers dont tell the whole story. Stuckeys style of play is not suited for this team moving forward. The win/loss record with and without him should dictate as much.

I know, small sample size, but I look at it this way - to show that Stuckey's presence is relevant, we use our high school statstics. Assume that Stuckey's presence is irrelevant, and show that's unlikely. Assuming that the Pistons' win probability is .333 (12 out of 37 with him), the Pistons would be expected to play at about a .333 clip without him if he was irrelevant. Defining success as a win (p(win) = .333), then the probability of winning 5 out of 6 is 6 * (.333^5)(.667), which is about 1.6%. Even if we adjust that slightly for opponents' record, we can still overturn our original assumption at a p<.05 confidence level.

So the odds of 5-1 being an anomaly is still somewhat small. some interesting data to be mined anyway. They played 3 home, 3 away, against slightly below-average competition. Their average margin of victory was +4, giving up an average of 93 ppg and scoring an average of 97. Bynum averaged 11.5 ppg and 5.5 apg on just over 20 mpg in those games, compared to 8.6/3.5 in about 17 mpg the rest of the season. That seems to pass the eyeball test - most of us suspect that the Pistons are not a good team with those two paired together.

Seems Stuckeyglue and Frank have resolved their differences, much to the chagrin of this Pistons fan. The organization's tendency to keep bending over backwards for a guy who is mediocre at best is ridiculous. Much of today's loss I lay on Frank's door, though; the fact that Bynum and Stuckeyglue don't fit (Stuck doesn't fit with ANYONE really) is glaringly obvious to anyone not named Frank (or maybe it is and that's why Stuckey was a healthy scratch in Orlando) and Joe Dumars.

Per 36 minutes means nothing to me. Neither of these guys plays 36 minutes a night and their actual numbers/avgs are an exact representation of what they are capable of. This isn't like one guy plays 35 mins a night and one guys plays 12. These guys get major minutes and their avgs are more than enough to get the full story. Especially since both guys have more than one season to look at. Besides, per 36 minutes could stretch across multiple games where the opposition and matchups are different, thus potentially changing the effectiveness or focus on a player. Well, not Stuckey, cause he would be bad no matter what...but, you get what I'm saying.

Stretching these guys minutes out to an unrealistic number and then making the case that they're similar on paper doesn't hold up. Stuckey HAD the opportunity to be where Knight is and he was terrible at it. He didn't shoot nearly as well, Knight doesn't have the piss poor attitude, and you can SEE how awful Stuckey performs during key stretches of games. Games aren't won or loss on paper with per minute stats, but they ARE lost when guys charge over guys when we need to score or leave an open shooter for 3 or refuse to pass the ball and singlehandedly kill our offense. This guy is just not good for this basketball team and is not a good fit for the personnel we have. You can't say that about Brandon Knight.

When you talk about efficiency, you have to normalize minutes. It would be a complete waste of time to scale 36 min down to 28 since it would lead to the exact same conclusion. I could show what each guy does per milisecond and knight's ast/tov ratio is still 49th in the league for point guards.

We know stuckey's production is scalable because we saw several years with him starting. The more minutes the coach gives him, the more shots he'll make and the more charges he'll commit.

Again, I'm not arguing stuckey is a good player, just that he's exactly as inefficient as knight. Most of the arguments in response have been "just look at stuckey, he's a poo poo head." I agree. He is.

When you talk about efficiency, you have to normalize minutes. It would be a complete waste of time to scale 36 min down to 28 since it would lead to the exact same conclusion. I could show what each guy does per milisecond and knight's ast/tov ratio is still 49th in the league for point guards.

We know stuckey's production is scalable because we saw several years with him starting. The more minutes the coach gives him, the more shots he'll make and the more charges he'll commit.

Again, I'm not arguing stuckey is a good player, just that he's exactly as inefficient as knight. Most of the arguments in response have been "just look at stuckey, he's a poo poo head." I agree. He is.

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Fair enough. I know where you're coming from, I think we are splitting hairs on the specifics. It sounds to me like you feel Knight is just as bad as Stuckey (attitude aside). I could be wrong, but that what I took from it. I DO agree they are both inconsistent, but Knight looks consistently better in his 2nd year than Stuckey does in his 6th. I just happen to believe that it should be relatively easy to find a replacement for the kind of poor production Stuckey is putting out. It's not like we couldn't survive losing him.

If we're going to go young, let's just go young. Clearly Joe D's "rebuild on the fly" model has NEVER worked and we (the team) should stop pretending like it's in progress on its way to success. Stuckey, Prince, Maxiell, and Daye should not even be here anymore and we're going to suffer if we're waiting for Monroe, Drummond, and Knight to have been here six years before the Pistons actually commit to those guys being the franchise.

From the moment he was drafted, the most intriguing thing about Stuckey was that he would be able to abuse the opposing PGs on defense due to his size and strength. However, all that advantage goes down is neutralized when he moves to the SG spot on defense. Now that he's a full-time SG, he needs someone bigger than him to play PG he can switch with on defense. So, if we had a really good 6' 6" PG, we could still utilize Stuckey's intriguing advantage. Without that, he's your average scoring combo guard off the bench.

Also, regardless irregardless of his strength, the type of game he plays will have its toll on his body. He'll become more and more injury-prone as time goes by and he'll finally reach the same point as Mags where he can't do anything anymore around the age of 30.

Knight may not be that great right now, but he's younger, is a better shooter and has more than one move in his arsenal, and can hit the 3. He will have a longer career than Stuckey.

Also, many of Knight's TOs are a result of him trying to do fancy stuff. When he makes simple passes, he's actually not that bad. He keeps trying to make ridiculous passes that aren't really necessary at least 2-3 times a game. If he just starts to cut down on those, his TOs will dramatically go down IMO. His ball handling is still suspect, but I can live with that.

I just find it hard to completely bash Stuckey while giving Knight a free pass. Stuckey is struggling mightily and is at a career low in almost every stat (total, per game, and per minute), yet his efficiency is still the same as Knight's.

Knight is much younger and has a great attitude... and has shooting range, so it's easy to miss how bad he's been as a "point guard" (his 31 point, 0 assist gem came mostly from being a SG). They say that point guards should be measured on the success of the team. If that's the case, BK is a total failure. Our team is pretty poor and our starting unit is the weakness. Charlotte and Washington are the only 2 teams in the NBA that get less scoring per minute from their starting 5. In terms of steals per minute, our starters are dead last in the league (something a starting PG could really help out with). In assists per minute, our starting 5 are 2nd worst in the league (with Charlotte being the only team worse). In total efficiency, our starting unit is 30th in the NBA.

Sure, some of this is personnel, with Singler, Tay, and Maxiell creating nothing. But when you combine a below average talent group like that with a combo guard that doesn't make anyone around him better, it's bad news.

On the bench side of things, where Stuckey resides, things are much rosier. We're tied for 3rd in scoring rate. We're tied for 3rd in rebounding. We're 8th in assists. 16th in steals. Tied for 3rd in blocks. 3rd in total efficiency combining all of this.

In summary: Starters are the 30th best in the NBA, bench is the 3rd best in the NBA.

Why would I spend much time attacking the combo guard who asked to come off the bench for the betterment of the team when his slump is still as good as our starting PG's efficiency? Many here act like putting Stuckey on a bus out of town is going to improve the team. How is that going to help our starting unit's production? Stuckey isn't putting any undue pressure on Knight that is causing a distraction. Is the goal to elevate our bench from 3rd best to 1st?

I agree with many who point out that Stuckey doesn't mesh with Bynum or Knight. But does Singler mesh with Knight and why doesn't the question get asked? Singler is a very nice shooter and Knight can't get him any more attempts per game than Maxiell gets (2nd to last and last on the team). Knight and Singler keep the ball moving... to what end? The more the starters pass the ball, the more the turnovers rack up. It's not resulting in assists or shooting efficiency.

Aren't combo guards supposed to be paired with another combo guard to make the model work? Milwaukee seems to be pulling it off. Singler is not a combo guard and it's arguable whether he's a guard at all. Sort of a combo G/SF. He's hit 12 3-pointer since 12/12/12... which is the exact same number than Stuckey has hit off the bench during the same timeframe, even though he can't shoot.

I will only say this. No one is giving Knight a free pass. He can definitely play better and I'm happy to go over his shortcomings. However, he's not 6 years in and still terrible. Besides, if you're asking the question of which one of these guys needs to go, the answer is pretty clear.

Yes our starters are not doing well and I will give you the point about a player or PG making his teammates better. But honestly, I'm not sure Magic Johnson could make Singlet (I'm claiming that now), 401-Tay, and Maxiell produce anymore than they are. 3/5 of our starting lineup is useless, so Knight really doesn't have much to work with. Now you can blame that on the front office or the stubborn nature of Tiny Tot, but Knight and Monroe are not the reason our starting unit can't get the job done.

...and there's 2 reasons why Stuckey is getting the business in here (RE: Why are we attacking the combo guard who comes off the bench...):
1) This thread is specifically about Stuckey and 2) coming off the bench or not, this guy basically plays starter minutes anyway. So he clearly deserves the same type of scrutiny that Knight would get AND he's being paid like the "star player." Clearly, it's not Rodney's fault that Joe D gave him a lifetimes worth of Christmas money, but he's still expected to perform WAY better than he has been.

None of my points (as I can't speak for anyone else) are intended to say that Knight is perfect, but he's clearly better for our team going forward than Stuckey will ever be.